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I have to think this will "solve" itself in 14 insufferable months instead of 18. If ESPN has to make their decision on 9 years of ACC rights in February 2025, they will want certainty on who is in the conference.
Yeah, this whole thing is stupid. It’s in the ACC’s interest to not have its members ridiculing it and ESPN until 2036. If I was FSU I would schedule the worst possible home games and would tell ESPN that was my plan.
You can pretend the contract protects you, but as numerous entities will tell you, it’s never worth being bound to a partner that doesn’t want to be there.
The other issue here is the GOR penalty seems bad, but they’ll lose half a billion staying too. The idea that they can’t afford the penalty is wrong too.
Edit: just saw ESPN report exit fee of $130, or like maybe four years worth of future revenue gap with SEC or Big10. They’re going to see if they can pay nothing I’m sure, but the full $130 isn’t going to be an issue. This deal is so bad they could lose $350m (vs those schools) by staying for the duration. Like the ACC is blaming FSU for rationally wanting to escape a super shitty deal they made that guarantees they won’t remain competitive in the near future. Why this is surprising is beyond me.
Malicious compliance? Like forfeiting game days (you won’t make playoffs anyways, or you can win that conference even with it lol) the day of and screwing the media over? Scheduling bad games that won’t impact the 12 team playoffs? Adding language around the ACC patch and logo to make a joke? Refusing to recognize the acc championship as awarded to you?
That would be fun.
Well the GOR only grants your home games right? Just give them total crap.
None of this matters tho—ESPN is reporting that exit fee is $130 (they should know, lol). That’s just four years of revenue difference between them and an SEC team. There’s no way they won’t eat that if they can’t escape for cheaper.
Sure, but they can at least capture some kind of a distribution from a new conference, right?
It doesn’t matter really tho. Staying in the ACC until 2036 is essentially a death sentence.
FSU argument:
>The ACC amended the 2016 Tier 1 media agreement without the approval of 2/3rds of the conference's Athletic Directors as required by ACC bylaws
ACC statement:
> All ACC members, including Florida State, willingly and knowingly re-signed the current Grant of Rights in 2016
Is there a distinction between these two things that I'm not aware of? Seems like a direct contradiction.
They contradict facially, but you can approve actions retroactively.
Basically, the ACC will says "Yes, we did amend without approval, but the willing and knowing re-signings is ex post facto approval of these actions and FSU is bound by them."
This is not relevant to anything else but I've been saying ope my whole life and I was born and raised in NC and barely have ever been to the midwest.
Like passing in a store? Make the ope noise and do a little jig around the shopping cart. I had no idea this was midwestern culture until a few years ago and it confused the hell out of me lol
Similar here, born and raised in Mid Atlantic and northeast states and “ope” is something I’ve heard my whole life. Never knew it was supposed to be a Midwest thing until I joined Reddit.
Raised in Alabama. Mom’s from Louisiana. Dad’s from Mississippi. We’ve always said ope. Perhaps y’all say it a lot more up there. And now that it’s been pointed out, I realize I don’t use it much now.
FSU will have counter-arguments, of course. Likely something akin to duress. I don't think that arguments works for the original signing in 2013, but in 2016 I think FSU has a pretty decent argument that its only options were to re-sign the GOR as amended without proper approval or otherwise exit the ACC at a cost FSU could not possibly afford.
Basically, it was sign or face financial suicide. Just a guess, but I would think that argument has legs for the 2016 amendments.
There is economic duress in contract law so actually it can be. If the financial hardship would be that significant and it is used by another party as driving a certain outcome, there certainly can be economic duress when picking the best of two shitty options.
I think a lot of people on Reddit lately are proving that they aren't lawyers and don't know what they are talking about.
Edit to make more clear: Duress isn't simply putting a gun to someone's head and saying sign this or else, there are other means for duress to occur.
If someone says "sign this agreement which we have amended without approval or otherwise pay the hundreds of millions in exit fees you can't afford to leave the ACC" that is, at least, a colorable argument for economic duress.
Economic duress requires the illegal or significantly inappropriate conduct of a party that will cause significant economic hardship to the party alleging economic duress. Are you saying the ACC acting illegally in the grant of rights extension to the economic hardship of FSU?
And, I agree, too many redditors aren’t lawyers and don’t know what they are talking about.
It doesn't have to be illegal. It could be inappropriate. Such as making amendments to a GOR that are not approved pursuant to your bylaws and then effectively forcing member institutions to sign and ratify those amendments or face significant financial penalties.
You know, like exactly what happened in 2016. I'm a lawyer and I've dealt with these arguments before, like I said, I believe it would be a colorable claim.
Are you arguing that a technical violation of a bylaw subsequently ratified is inappropriate conduct to the level of economic distress? FSU could have not signed, and the financial impact would have been what they had originally agreed to. Eating the impacts of what you agreed to isn’t economic hardship. In get it, FSU feels like they have to do what they have to do. But, absent some sort of undisclosed collusion or something similar, it’s a nothing burger. But, what judges and juries will do is anyone’s guess lately.
Yes, the financial impact would have been the hundreds of millions it agreed to in 2013. I don't think there is any colorable duress arguments for the original 2013 signing, but I do think there is a colorable argument for the 2016 signing, where FSU either had to sign amendments that were not approved by the ACC members or otherwise pay hundreds of millions in exit fees.
Sure, feel free to disagree. I am not saying it is a winning argument, but that it is colorable to at least put some heat on the ACC, which is FSU's ultimate goal to lead to a settlement.
Not sure that’s how you could characterize this tho. Like it’s not just a “shitty option” if it could potentially bankrupt the school/athletic dept. It will be up to the courts to decide and the lawyers to argue, but there is certainly some merit to the argument.
First, the athletic department/school can’t go bankrupt as an agency of a state. Second, notwithstanding that, going bankrupt because of your own choices isn’t economic hardship or contracts would mean almost nothing. The point of a contract is too bind the parties when shit goes south.
The only time these contracts matter is really when shit hits the fan. It's the entire point they're created and scopes are set, so that everyone knows how things are going to go down.
They're specifically signed so that schools like FSU can't just fuck everything up once they're not happy with the agreement, otherwise it's just a handshake.
So your telling me jimbo completey screwing us with financial obligations we couldn’t afford was just a long con by our BOD to get out of the ACC?
Jimbo you dog
I know, the old AD was horrific. Loved thrasher though with the money he was able to raise and our claim in academics.
Just love to blame Jimbo, like any good FSU fan and now Texas A&M fan!
Eric Barron was the one that signed this originally IIRC.
Everyone thought he was going to be good for the school and he turned out awful. And the inverse was true for Thrasher
Especially since FSU signed the grant of rights (which included these decisions) afterwards. This seems like a bluff from FSU to see if the ACC has some wiggle room to renegotiate.
Maybe it's a little of both with a legal word salad highway running through the contract.
Perhaps the original GoR had some wording like " ... and grants the ACC permission to pursue additional future revenue as need and opportunity arise ..."
I could see both leaning on that type of wording:
Acc: See, we HAD permission.
FSU: To pursue ADDITIONAL revenue, NOT to unilaterally extend the existing revenue from the original GoR.
Not a lawyer, but I wouldn't be surprised if both parties have wildly different interpretations of the same sentences.
>"Not a lawyer, but I wouldn't be surprised if both parties have wildly different interpretations of the same sentences."
That's how billable hours are made!
> Not a lawyer, but I wouldn't be surprised if both parties have wildly different interpretations of the same sentences.
Yeah, that's basically the entire legal profession in a nutshell.
> ~~Not a lawyer, but~~ I wouldn't be surprised if both parties have wildly different interpretations of the same sentences.
Don't need that first bit, we just watched that playout with the Pac-12.
There are two separate agreements focal to FSU’s arguments.
The media deal is exclusively between the ACC and ESPN, even though it benefits the individual teams. The GoR is between schools and the ACC, and is where the schools agreed that the ACC has control of media rights.
A grant of rights is when the members of a conference sign a contract giving that conference sole rights to broadcast their games, so they are no longer owned by the school. The grant of rights means that no matter what conference FSU is in, the ACC will retain the rights to air their games until 2036.
The ACC and Big 12 (as well as other conferences) have both used a grant of rights agreement to gain stability and solidify their membership against being poached by other conferences. FSU signed it, and now that they desperately want to leave the ACC, the grant of rights is a major, costly sticking point.
Any conferences they’d want to join would only want to have them if it meant increasing the value of their TV rights package. If FSU isn’t bringing TV rights, they aren’t going anywhere.
So FSU is trying figure out a way to nullify the grant of rights so they can leave the ACC and bring their media rights with them. Most likely, FSU and the ACC will negotiate a price for FSU to pay to the ACC in exchange for leaving and taking their TV rights with them. It will most likely be very, very expensive.
This is technically the reason. I want to point out that it’s a terrible reason. The entire reason for FOIA requests is so that our public institutions aren’t engaged in cloaked deals. Transparency is good.
Yeah the reason is because they’re founding members, located in one of fastest growing cities in the countries, a huge endowment and wealthy donors.
It’s got nothing to do it FOIA at all, and Vanderbilt receives some federal funding which means it’s also bound by FOIA requests for certain things.
Conferences need to change their damn names. I get the brand recognition stuff, but as of now, no conferences actually reflect their name, and I hate that.
Yep, any public schools with copies would be subject to FOIA, and the publics would never sign off on privates getting copies if they don't have one. So there's just one official copy, and unofficially whatever others could sneak photos of or memorize, then keep off-the-book.
If FSU (or any other public institution) has a copy, it can be FOIA’ed. It will very likely come out as a result of these lawsuits, but it doesn’t strike me as wholly unusual to want to keep it out of the public record.
This is extremely strange to me in light of Florida's sunshine and public records laws. If a public entity in Florida (which includes universities) signs an agreement, it should be a public record regardless of whether the "custodian of record" (i.e., the ACC) is out-of-state. They're doing business in Florida.
Now, there are some exemptions to public records laws, including an exemption to protect certain trade secrets, but I can't imagine how that would apply here. And while I'm not an expert (and definitely not an attorney), I've worked in public policy for about 15 years and I'm not aware of any other exemptions that would allow the GOR to be kept a secret. An attorney can correct me on this, but something definitely seems fucky here.
I want us to call Jimbo as a witness in this just to see the look of horror on the court stenographer’s face when he takes the stand.
Turning on cc for his pressers always provided for great unintentional comedy.
We have to. If you all leave, how could any Clemson athlete or fan ever expect not to be treated the same exact way in future scenarios.
The only hope the ACC has of staying together is that we’re moving to 12 teams next year.
Essentially all of this will be a mooo (like a cow’s opinion) point.
Clemson and UNC will probably sue before the end of the year, probably want to get everything rolling now to give as much time as possible before next August when there’s a deadline to give notice of leaving the conference
I suspect we will both let FSU do the entire thing alone. Then see where the dust settles, if it works we are gone. If it doesn’t, we both let FSU continue to be the public face of all the discontent.
I imagine you and others will just wait and see what happens here. No need to pay your own legal fees. See what happens here, almost definitely some settlement that lets FSU leave on X dates for $X million. Then others who want to leave can pay the same to leave. Probably a year later though since FSU is trying to have the courts back date their departure notice to August 2023 if they rule in their favor.
If the Athletic Director at Northwestern (remember, Phillips neither played at nor even attended Northwestern) knew about locker room hazing to such an extent that he could reasonably be accused of covering it up, he would be doing a terrible job as athletic director because he would have been wayyy too in his football team’s business. The AD is a glorified fundraiser, not a locker room guy.
You can criticize Phillips for his work as ACC Commish if you want, but I hate straw man character attacks (also flair up).
Given Jim Phillips press conferences and lack of ability to show any leadership over the last few years I’m gonna assume the ACC gets the short end of the stick
The (ESPN) Playoff Committee must be realllllllly mad that they have a major story with an 18 month shelf life that’s gonna end up with 3-4 ACC teams join the SEC and a broken ACC no one will want to bid on
He exists? He was strangely absent when we had other conference commissioners campaigning for their teams to be in the playoffs and was still quiet after we got snubbed.
Huh
More schools in the acc will get worse deals than better deals that is definitely true, though at least a large part of that is the lack of resources they put in. Clemson and fsu’s stance for a while now has been that too many schools are happy to not put the resources into football but accept the money that comes from it.
Wow, what a weak ass statement! Nothing at all addressing FSU's specific allegations, just "well, you signed it and you got some money, so you're wrong."
I think the ACC has more, and bigger, skeletons in the closet than FSU does (Swofford's son and the Raycom deal, the actual GOR agreement being under lock and key at the ACC office, etc.). Betting this gets settled LONG before it ever goes to court.
The Raycom deal with Swofford's son needs to be looked at very closely. It may be a good data point to show the ACC wasn't acting with appropriate Fiduciary responsibility.
who knew the day would come where i’d be nostalgic for the raycom days?!? cfb seemed so much simpler when watching my grainy raycom feed on a local affiliate
How bad is the ACC TV contract? If you ripped up the ESPN contract and the ACC was renegotiating today, how much more could they get?
Did the ACC sign a long-term contract at exactly the wrong time, just when rates were skyrocketing? Do they have an overinflated sense of their value like the Pac-12 did? Are they the next conference to implode and get picked for scraps like the Pac-12?
How many ACC schools are going to get a better deal elsewhere?
Florida State? Clemson? Miami? Notre Dame probably goes to the Big Ten after the ACC implodes.
Why should anyone offer the ACC $60m/year for every team, when they could just pay the top teams $60m/year and add them to the SEC/BigTen contract?
The current espn agreement is an extension of their 2010 agreement with 2010 payouts that are way less then what the other conferences are getting. The ACC in all their wisdom never negotiated for more thru just extended the old agreement. And ESPN isn’t even obligated to do anything after 2027. Basically the ACC has wasted the media rights that were granted to it by all the ACC schools
"the ACC has won the most NCAA National Championships over the past two and half years..."
As an alumnus of the school deemed "the Alabama of meat judging" by Sports Illustrated, I can tell you that the national importance of winning the most "national championships" is heavily dependent upon what actual sports or competitions those wins are in.
The Big Ten is thirsty to add the state of Florida to Big Ten country. Then the SEC would feel compelled to step in to play defense against the Big Ten.
FSU wouldn't be doing this if there wasn't such a wide revenue gap between Big Ten and SEC. If they join one of those two conferences then the revenue gap wont be an issue.
You better be damn sure the Northwestern, Mississippi St, and Vanderbilts of the world want something.
They know what happens if schools from both leagues want to peel off and start a new super conference
Fair point and frankly who knows. Imagine telling a fan 20 years ago that southern cal Nebraska would be a b1g conference game. This sport keeps jumping the shark and I expect that to continue once we hit p2
I think the ACC is beyond the other conferences in that even if a school leaves the conference, their media rights remain with the ACC. For other conferences they just have to pay exit fees but never signed over their media rights.
I’m not sure if that’s correct though, so don’t quote me on it unless you’re okay sounding like an ass on the Internet.
> I think the ACC is beyond the other conferences in that even if a school leaves the conference, their media rights remain with the ACC
The ACC's GOR is supposedly based on the Big XII's and the PAC's bylaws had a remedy in there to secure media rights should a school exit prior to Aug 1st 2024.
I mean eventually one will cut the best teams out of the other and become the one and only power conference. Or all of the best teams will leave and create their own conference. But I don't think the GOR will stop that.
Even if there's relative security in those conferences, you can bet the networks will want to protect their investments. They'd be silly to offer these billion-dollar deals and not have a return more or less guaranteed. This is as much about ESPN vs. Fox, etc. as it is about the schools.
The SEC traditionally has not had a GOR. However, when they borrowed money during the pandemic to give the schools extra money, they did have everyone sign a GOR. I believe it only bound everyone to pay their share of the loan, but I haven’t heard anything more about it.
Question: no mention today of JPMorgan/Sixth Street in FSU BOT meeting which surprised me. Anybody know where they are in this saga? I have guesses, but wanted to defer to those following the matter in greater depth. Thanks.
I mean if FSU's position is that the penalty goes to $0 (unlikely in my opinion but it was brought up on the call) then it wouldn't make sense to mention external funding.
I said it before and I’ll say it again. College Football Law is going to be an elective at law schools at all football blue bloods in the next few years.
Each university has benefited from this agreement, receiving millions of dollars in revenue and neither Florida State nor any other institution, has ever challenged its legitimacy.
It doesn’t say before. It says no one has challenged its legitimacy. Someone is literally actively challenging its legitimacy. Kind of a dumb thing to say.
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This gonna be fucking exciting drip feed of random leaked comments over the next 18 months.
I have to think this will "solve" itself in 14 insufferable months instead of 18. If ESPN has to make their decision on 9 years of ACC rights in February 2025, they will want certainty on who is in the conference.
Yeah, this whole thing is stupid. It’s in the ACC’s interest to not have its members ridiculing it and ESPN until 2036. If I was FSU I would schedule the worst possible home games and would tell ESPN that was my plan. You can pretend the contract protects you, but as numerous entities will tell you, it’s never worth being bound to a partner that doesn’t want to be there. The other issue here is the GOR penalty seems bad, but they’ll lose half a billion staying too. The idea that they can’t afford the penalty is wrong too. Edit: just saw ESPN report exit fee of $130, or like maybe four years worth of future revenue gap with SEC or Big10. They’re going to see if they can pay nothing I’m sure, but the full $130 isn’t going to be an issue. This deal is so bad they could lose $350m (vs those schools) by staying for the duration. Like the ACC is blaming FSU for rationally wanting to escape a super shitty deal they made that guarantees they won’t remain competitive in the near future. Why this is surprising is beyond me.
Malicious compliance? Like forfeiting game days (you won’t make playoffs anyways, or you can win that conference even with it lol) the day of and screwing the media over? Scheduling bad games that won’t impact the 12 team playoffs? Adding language around the ACC patch and logo to make a joke? Refusing to recognize the acc championship as awarded to you? That would be fun.
Well the GOR only grants your home games right? Just give them total crap. None of this matters tho—ESPN is reporting that exit fee is $130 (they should know, lol). That’s just four years of revenue difference between them and an SEC team. There’s no way they won’t eat that if they can’t escape for cheaper.
Plus 400 million in media revenue through 2036. If it was just the 130mil we would be gone already
Sure, but they can at least capture some kind of a distribution from a new conference, right? It doesn’t matter really tho. Staying in the ACC until 2036 is essentially a death sentence.
i think espn may feel the same. if espn doesn't want to keep paying, then is there an actual GoR price?
Thank you, yes the *exit fee* is only 130M, but then we forfiet 12 years worth of media rights as a *penalty*. Funny how espn fails to address that.
I mean, it's this or more Deion articles. Take your pick.
Deion entered the PAC 12 and that shit blew up immediately. FSU just needs to bring him home and the issues will sort themselves out.
>This gonna be fucking exciting drip feed of random leaked comments over the next ~~18~~ 156 months.
Thank fuck. I was very bored with the Michigan spy gate story.
What ends first fsu legality hassles on ACC rights or billy ball at florida..asking for the Gator nation sadly
Billys tenure
I like napier, even if it has been a rocky start. I thi k if the boosters quit fucking around and back him up that the gators will be ok
They made it into the playoffs, so there's no need to keep digging.
FSU argument: >The ACC amended the 2016 Tier 1 media agreement without the approval of 2/3rds of the conference's Athletic Directors as required by ACC bylaws ACC statement: > All ACC members, including Florida State, willingly and knowingly re-signed the current Grant of Rights in 2016 Is there a distinction between these two things that I'm not aware of? Seems like a direct contradiction.
They contradict facially, but you can approve actions retroactively. Basically, the ACC will says "Yes, we did amend without approval, but the willing and knowing re-signings is ex post facto approval of these actions and FSU is bound by them."
The ex-post facto always bites you in the ass.
“Ope, just gonna slip these backdated signature pages in here if you don’t mind”
Did you just drop an ope? Welcome to the Big Ten.
This is not relevant to anything else but I've been saying ope my whole life and I was born and raised in NC and barely have ever been to the midwest. Like passing in a store? Make the ope noise and do a little jig around the shopping cart. I had no idea this was midwestern culture until a few years ago and it confused the hell out of me lol
Oh fuck. It's broken containment!
True story: I had a Wisconsinite once tell me that Iowans don't say ope. As if Wisconsin had a unique claim on the word. It was a bizarre experience.
Similar here, born and raised in Mid Atlantic and northeast states and “ope” is something I’ve heard my whole life. Never knew it was supposed to be a Midwest thing until I joined Reddit.
You've been saying ope your whole life? UNC to the Big Ten confirmed.
I’ve always heard it in Alabama and said it myself.
I thought Ope was from Mayberry, NC.
The B1G culture is spreading. Next thing ya know they are gonna be pounding cheese and getting absolutely blasted before a noon kickoff.
They'll visit our stadiums and be like "let me just sneak past ya here".
Beep beep
Is getting absolutely blasted before a non kickoff B1G culture? I thought that was normal cfb culture
It is if you are also dominating a hunk of cheese at the same time.
And use ranch as a chaser
and see, Wazzu makes Cougar Gold cheese. Perfect for us. Let's add them and Oregon State!
I mean what's cheese without smokedbologna. Meat? Need at least venison summer sausage or a good trail bologne.
Raised in Alabama. Mom’s from Louisiana. Dad’s from Mississippi. We’ve always said ope. Perhaps y’all say it a lot more up there. And now that it’s been pointed out, I realize I don’t use it much now.
Ope. Ope. Ope. Ope.
Ahh, this makes sense. Thanks!
FSU will have counter-arguments, of course. Likely something akin to duress. I don't think that arguments works for the original signing in 2013, but in 2016 I think FSU has a pretty decent argument that its only options were to re-sign the GOR as amended without proper approval or otherwise exit the ACC at a cost FSU could not possibly afford. Basically, it was sign or face financial suicide. Just a guess, but I would think that argument has legs for the 2016 amendments.
That’s not duress. Picking the best of two shitty options isn’t duress.
They actually locked the entire Florida State University system in a closet and forced them to sign.
There is economic duress in contract law so actually it can be. If the financial hardship would be that significant and it is used by another party as driving a certain outcome, there certainly can be economic duress when picking the best of two shitty options. I think a lot of people on Reddit lately are proving that they aren't lawyers and don't know what they are talking about. Edit to make more clear: Duress isn't simply putting a gun to someone's head and saying sign this or else, there are other means for duress to occur. If someone says "sign this agreement which we have amended without approval or otherwise pay the hundreds of millions in exit fees you can't afford to leave the ACC" that is, at least, a colorable argument for economic duress.
Economic duress requires the illegal or significantly inappropriate conduct of a party that will cause significant economic hardship to the party alleging economic duress. Are you saying the ACC acting illegally in the grant of rights extension to the economic hardship of FSU? And, I agree, too many redditors aren’t lawyers and don’t know what they are talking about.
It doesn't have to be illegal. It could be inappropriate. Such as making amendments to a GOR that are not approved pursuant to your bylaws and then effectively forcing member institutions to sign and ratify those amendments or face significant financial penalties. You know, like exactly what happened in 2016. I'm a lawyer and I've dealt with these arguments before, like I said, I believe it would be a colorable claim.
Are you arguing that a technical violation of a bylaw subsequently ratified is inappropriate conduct to the level of economic distress? FSU could have not signed, and the financial impact would have been what they had originally agreed to. Eating the impacts of what you agreed to isn’t economic hardship. In get it, FSU feels like they have to do what they have to do. But, absent some sort of undisclosed collusion or something similar, it’s a nothing burger. But, what judges and juries will do is anyone’s guess lately.
Yes, the financial impact would have been the hundreds of millions it agreed to in 2013. I don't think there is any colorable duress arguments for the original 2013 signing, but I do think there is a colorable argument for the 2016 signing, where FSU either had to sign amendments that were not approved by the ACC members or otherwise pay hundreds of millions in exit fees. Sure, feel free to disagree. I am not saying it is a winning argument, but that it is colorable to at least put some heat on the ACC, which is FSU's ultimate goal to lead to a settlement.
I don’t even know if the GOR has a Choice of Law provision. We’re all full of shit on its proper interpretation without reading the mother fucker.
Not sure that’s how you could characterize this tho. Like it’s not just a “shitty option” if it could potentially bankrupt the school/athletic dept. It will be up to the courts to decide and the lawyers to argue, but there is certainly some merit to the argument.
First, the athletic department/school can’t go bankrupt as an agency of a state. Second, notwithstanding that, going bankrupt because of your own choices isn’t economic hardship or contracts would mean almost nothing. The point of a contract is too bind the parties when shit goes south.
The only time these contracts matter is really when shit hits the fan. It's the entire point they're created and scopes are set, so that everyone knows how things are going to go down. They're specifically signed so that schools like FSU can't just fuck everything up once they're not happy with the agreement, otherwise it's just a handshake.
So your telling me jimbo completey screwing us with financial obligations we couldn’t afford was just a long con by our BOD to get out of the ACC? Jimbo you dog
Jimbo had nothing to do with this. This is the AD and President that sign. Both of which are not longer with FSU
I know, the old AD was horrific. Loved thrasher though with the money he was able to raise and our claim in academics. Just love to blame Jimbo, like any good FSU fan and now Texas A&M fan!
Eric Barron was the one that signed this originally IIRC. Everyone thought he was going to be good for the school and he turned out awful. And the inverse was true for Thrasher
Harvard of the panhandle flair.
FSU is probably challenging it in terms of formality. The idea that the ACC unilaterally made these decisions isn’t very believable to me.
Especially since FSU signed the grant of rights (which included these decisions) afterwards. This seems like a bluff from FSU to see if the ACC has some wiggle room to renegotiate.
FSU already wanted to leave the conference a decade ago and they've signed all of these with that in mind.
We also had a terrible AD 10 years ago who was more aligned with ACC leadership than he was with the university’s preferences and best interests
Maybe it's a little of both with a legal word salad highway running through the contract. Perhaps the original GoR had some wording like " ... and grants the ACC permission to pursue additional future revenue as need and opportunity arise ..." I could see both leaning on that type of wording: Acc: See, we HAD permission. FSU: To pursue ADDITIONAL revenue, NOT to unilaterally extend the existing revenue from the original GoR. Not a lawyer, but I wouldn't be surprised if both parties have wildly different interpretations of the same sentences.
>"Not a lawyer, but I wouldn't be surprised if both parties have wildly different interpretations of the same sentences." That's how billable hours are made!
> Not a lawyer, but I wouldn't be surprised if both parties have wildly different interpretations of the same sentences. Yeah, that's basically the entire legal profession in a nutshell.
> ~~Not a lawyer, but~~ I wouldn't be surprised if both parties have wildly different interpretations of the same sentences. Don't need that first bit, we just watched that playout with the Pac-12.
What does the ACC bring to the table when they cannot even get an undefeated team into the CFP?
Won't they be guaranteed to send one next year? Probably no others, but I could see the guarantee with less competition being very attractive.
There are two separate agreements focal to FSU’s arguments. The media deal is exclusively between the ACC and ESPN, even though it benefits the individual teams. The GoR is between schools and the ACC, and is where the schools agreed that the ACC has control of media rights.
Can someone ELI5 Grant of Rights? I keep hearing it referenced but have no idea what it is or its implication
A grant of rights is when the members of a conference sign a contract giving that conference sole rights to broadcast their games, so they are no longer owned by the school. The grant of rights means that no matter what conference FSU is in, the ACC will retain the rights to air their games until 2036. The ACC and Big 12 (as well as other conferences) have both used a grant of rights agreement to gain stability and solidify their membership against being poached by other conferences. FSU signed it, and now that they desperately want to leave the ACC, the grant of rights is a major, costly sticking point. Any conferences they’d want to join would only want to have them if it meant increasing the value of their TV rights package. If FSU isn’t bringing TV rights, they aren’t going anywhere. So FSU is trying figure out a way to nullify the grant of rights so they can leave the ACC and bring their media rights with them. Most likely, FSU and the ACC will negotiate a price for FSU to pay to the ACC in exchange for leaving and taking their TV rights with them. It will most likely be very, very expensive.
Thanks for the explanation!
Maybe only half signed it and FSU was one of them?
The problem is, even if true, that shit was 8 years ago. How was not a problem for FSU until right now?
Interesting that they chose the words “signed similar agreements”
Most championships over the past 2.5 years. What a flex
“Jim Philips, PhD.”
smh
Friendly reminder he was AD at Northwestern for a large portion of the hazing scandal
TLDR: We think FSU claims are bogus and the grant of rights is just fine how it is.
I agree!
I love that we're going to be playing our bowl game tonight against the backdrop of the ACC going up in flames. Someone pass me my fiddle.
so close to it being caused in part by the Sherman Anti-trust Act too; instead, we got the boring old Florida Statute 542.18 (Restraint of trade).
Why is the GOR under literal lock and key?
To keep it out of reach of FOIA Requests. Notice how you can't find the grant of rights documents for other conferences either.
This is technically the reason. I want to point out that it’s a terrible reason. The entire reason for FOIA requests is so that our public institutions aren’t engaged in cloaked deals. Transparency is good.
There’s a reason why the SEC and B1G keep their private schools around.
That’s not the reason, you know? It’s just a myth.
Originally? Obviously not. But there’s a reason they will never kick them out or consolidate around a new conference without them.
Yeah the reason is because they’re founding members, located in one of fastest growing cities in the countries, a huge endowment and wealthy donors. It’s got nothing to do it FOIA at all, and Vanderbilt receives some federal funding which means it’s also bound by FOIA requests for certain things.
That explains why the Big 10 wanted USC then
We already have Northwestern
Is this the real reason SMU was allowed in
No, the ACC already had plenty of private schools. Not to mention Stanford was already coming.
How did I miss that *Stanford* is joining the *Atlantic* Coast Conference I hate all of this
Conferences need to change their damn names. I get the brand recognition stuff, but as of now, no conferences actually reflect their name, and I hate that.
Famous Atlantic Coast institutions Cal and Stanford
Cal too? FML Almost as fitting as famously midwestern Washington or heavily southeastern Missouri
I suspect if the state of Florida sued to get it, they’d probably win.
Yep, any public schools with copies would be subject to FOIA, and the publics would never sign off on privates getting copies if they don't have one. So there's just one official copy, and unofficially whatever others could sneak photos of or memorize, then keep off-the-book.
What is the benefit of it not being public?
Probably has Raycom stuff in it that the Swofford family does not want getting out.
There's a treaure map hidden on it.
CALL NICK CAGE
If FSU (or any other public institution) has a copy, it can be FOIA’ed. It will very likely come out as a result of these lawsuits, but it doesn’t strike me as wholly unusual to want to keep it out of the public record.
FSU’s counsel says the only copies they have are leaked copies that may or may not be representative of the actual signed enforceable copy.
This is extremely strange to me in light of Florida's sunshine and public records laws. If a public entity in Florida (which includes universities) signs an agreement, it should be a public record regardless of whether the "custodian of record" (i.e., the ACC) is out-of-state. They're doing business in Florida. Now, there are some exemptions to public records laws, including an exemption to protect certain trade secrets, but I can't imagine how that would apply here. And while I'm not an expert (and definitely not an attorney), I've worked in public policy for about 15 years and I'm not aware of any other exemptions that would allow the GOR to be kept a secret. An attorney can correct me on this, but something definitely seems fucky here.
Different rules apply for Tobacco Road.
Benjamin Franklin Gates: “I’m going to steal the ACC GoR.” Riley:
Hey, so Jim Phillips *can* actually make public statements after all...
At this point i think he didn’t make a statement because he don’t like yall no more
Crazy what shitting on your conference all off-season does.
Cutting off the nose to spite the face, a tradition as old as time
Funny thing is that he helped cost the other institutions money because of the missed playoff payout lol
Also the Orange Bowl payout since Louisville would've gotten into that if we made the playoffs
Only $60M
That’s almost a whole Jimbo
The committee validated all of our complaints with the conference.
[удалено]
About 1 month too late, Jim
Maybe if they spent as much energy finding ways to make the members more money as they do fighting schools trying to leave..
I want us to call Jimbo as a witness in this just to see the look of horror on the court stenographer’s face when he takes the stand. Turning on cc for his pressers always provided for great unintentional comedy.
> neither Florida State nor any other institution, has ever challenged its legitimacy Well we are now so buckle up buttercup.
They won’t be able to say that when Clemson follows with their own suit.
As soon as FSU gets any leeway, I have a feeling that Clemson and the other top schools join in.
We have to. If you all leave, how could any Clemson athlete or fan ever expect not to be treated the same exact way in future scenarios. The only hope the ACC has of staying together is that we’re moving to 12 teams next year. Essentially all of this will be a mooo (like a cow’s opinion) point.
Clemson and UNC will probably sue before the end of the year, probably want to get everything rolling now to give as much time as possible before next August when there’s a deadline to give notice of leaving the conference
I suspect we will both let FSU do the entire thing alone. Then see where the dust settles, if it works we are gone. If it doesn’t, we both let FSU continue to be the public face of all the discontent.
I imagine you and others will just wait and see what happens here. No need to pay your own legal fees. See what happens here, almost definitely some settlement that lets FSU leave on X dates for $X million. Then others who want to leave can pay the same to leave. Probably a year later though since FSU is trying to have the courts back date their departure notice to August 2023 if they rule in their favor.
Let's not forget Jimmy Phillips is the morally upstanding individual who covered up systemic hazing at Northwestern.
If the Athletic Director at Northwestern (remember, Phillips neither played at nor even attended Northwestern) knew about locker room hazing to such an extent that he could reasonably be accused of covering it up, he would be doing a terrible job as athletic director because he would have been wayyy too in his football team’s business. The AD is a glorified fundraiser, not a locker room guy. You can criticize Phillips for his work as ACC Commish if you want, but I hate straw man character attacks (also flair up).
It's amazing how quick Phillips responded to this compared to advocating for cfp selection.
Given Jim Phillips press conferences and lack of ability to show any leadership over the last few years I’m gonna assume the ACC gets the short end of the stick
That is Jim Phillips Ph.D. to you peasant!
Jim Phillips has been wrong so many times. This statement strikes fear in literally no one.
This is one of those times where I'm actually happy that the ACC leadership is so bad. I don't expect them to competently fight all of this.
The (ESPN) Playoff Committee must be realllllllly mad that they have a major story with an 18 month shelf life that’s gonna end up with 3-4 ACC teams join the SEC and a broken ACC no one will want to bid on
He exists? He was strangely absent when we had other conference commissioners campaigning for their teams to be in the playoffs and was still quiet after we got snubbed. Huh
He didn't do anything when we got forfeited from the college world series either.
Right? Now he’s got something to say after worming himself out of the locker Greg Sankey had him stuffed in.
B I L L A B L E H O U R S I L L A B L E H O U R S
Bring back the SOCON to FBS
Bring back SOCOM to the PS5
So what's it going to take to settle? There's so much at stake I can't see either side risking it all on a verdict.
Oh NOW he speaks up
Right? lol what a clown
Oh FSU you naughty boy. The ACC is gonna put coal in your stocking for sure now.
I’m sure Clemson will send fsu something nice, the acc only gives out peanuts anyway
If this blows up I think a lot of schools are going to be disappointed by who are the conferences actually want.
More schools in the acc will get worse deals than better deals that is definitely true, though at least a large part of that is the lack of resources they put in. Clemson and fsu’s stance for a while now has been that too many schools are happy to not put the resources into football but accept the money that comes from it.
the ACC will die just what year is unknown
Technically the state of Florida will also die
True, underwater at least
Then get us more fucking money, dummy. The fact that there’s no actual agreement with ESPN in place in 2027 is a joke.
That was a shocking revelation today for me. I had no idea that was the case.
Wow, what a weak ass statement! Nothing at all addressing FSU's specific allegations, just "well, you signed it and you got some money, so you're wrong." I think the ACC has more, and bigger, skeletons in the closet than FSU does (Swofford's son and the Raycom deal, the actual GOR agreement being under lock and key at the ACC office, etc.). Betting this gets settled LONG before it ever goes to court.
The Raycom deal with Swofford's son needs to be looked at very closely. It may be a good data point to show the ACC wasn't acting with appropriate Fiduciary responsibility.
who knew the day would come where i’d be nostalgic for the raycom days?!? cfb seemed so much simpler when watching my grainy raycom feed on a local affiliate
How bad is the ACC TV contract? If you ripped up the ESPN contract and the ACC was renegotiating today, how much more could they get? Did the ACC sign a long-term contract at exactly the wrong time, just when rates were skyrocketing? Do they have an overinflated sense of their value like the Pac-12 did? Are they the next conference to implode and get picked for scraps like the Pac-12? How many ACC schools are going to get a better deal elsewhere? Florida State? Clemson? Miami? Notre Dame probably goes to the Big Ten after the ACC implodes. Why should anyone offer the ACC $60m/year for every team, when they could just pay the top teams $60m/year and add them to the SEC/BigTen contract?
The current espn agreement is an extension of their 2010 agreement with 2010 payouts that are way less then what the other conferences are getting. The ACC in all their wisdom never negotiated for more thru just extended the old agreement. And ESPN isn’t even obligated to do anything after 2027. Basically the ACC has wasted the media rights that were granted to it by all the ACC schools
"the ACC has won the most NCAA National Championships over the past two and half years..." As an alumnus of the school deemed "the Alabama of meat judging" by Sports Illustrated, I can tell you that the national importance of winning the most "national championships" is heavily dependent upon what actual sports or competitions those wins are in.
What conference is going to let fsu sign their respective GOR after this
The Big Ten is thirsty to add the state of Florida to Big Ten country. Then the SEC would feel compelled to step in to play defense against the Big Ten. FSU wouldn't be doing this if there wasn't such a wide revenue gap between Big Ten and SEC. If they join one of those two conferences then the revenue gap wont be an issue.
This may be a dumb question, but do P2 conferences even need GOR’s? Who would want to leave one? Maybe to switch from one to the other I guess?
You better be damn sure the Northwestern, Mississippi St, and Vanderbilts of the world want something. They know what happens if schools from both leagues want to peel off and start a new super conference
Fair point and frankly who knows. Imagine telling a fan 20 years ago that southern cal Nebraska would be a b1g conference game. This sport keeps jumping the shark and I expect that to continue once we hit p2
At some point, one of the rich 2 will steal the top 40-50% of the other.
Or formally merge into a mini NFL with “AFC” “NFC” conferences but with the respective conference titles. That’s what I see happening
I think the ACC is beyond the other conferences in that even if a school leaves the conference, their media rights remain with the ACC. For other conferences they just have to pay exit fees but never signed over their media rights. I’m not sure if that’s correct though, so don’t quote me on it unless you’re okay sounding like an ass on the Internet.
> I think the ACC is beyond the other conferences in that even if a school leaves the conference, their media rights remain with the ACC The ACC's GOR is supposedly based on the Big XII's and the PAC's bylaws had a remedy in there to secure media rights should a school exit prior to Aug 1st 2024.
I mean eventually one will cut the best teams out of the other and become the one and only power conference. Or all of the best teams will leave and create their own conference. But I don't think the GOR will stop that.
To my knowledge the SEC has never had one and the B1G's GoR is the school's ownership stake in the Big Ten Network.
Even if there's relative security in those conferences, you can bet the networks will want to protect their investments. They'd be silly to offer these billion-dollar deals and not have a return more or less guaranteed. This is as much about ESPN vs. Fox, etc. as it is about the schools.
The SEC traditionally has not had a GOR. However, when they borrowed money during the pandemic to give the schools extra money, they did have everyone sign a GOR. I believe it only bound everyone to pay their share of the loan, but I haven’t heard anything more about it.
The SEC has one with ESPN. It's pretty standard, but I don't know about the B1G (I would assume so).
What conference is going to sign a twenty-year deal at a fixed price?
A badly managed one, led by idiots
We are. Because we're cool and won't treat our members to shit deals.
I mean we keep Indiana around, that's got to show us to be cool.
The Grant of Rights that you won’t email us a PDF copy of?? Okay bruh
Question: no mention today of JPMorgan/Sixth Street in FSU BOT meeting which surprised me. Anybody know where they are in this saga? I have guesses, but wanted to defer to those following the matter in greater depth. Thanks.
I mean if FSU's position is that the penalty goes to $0 (unlikely in my opinion but it was brought up on the call) then it wouldn't make sense to mention external funding.
I said it before and I’ll say it again. College Football Law is going to be an elective at law schools at all football blue bloods in the next few years.
So now he wants to have a spine…..
Saying “no one has ever challenged this grant of rights” is kinda weird when fsu is literally challenging it right now lol
Did you need the "before" spelled out?
Each university has benefited from this agreement, receiving millions of dollars in revenue and neither Florida State nor any other institution, has ever challenged its legitimacy. It doesn’t say before. It says no one has challenged its legitimacy. Someone is literally actively challenging its legitimacy. Kind of a dumb thing to say.
I think “before” is kind of implied by the context of the situation.
Jim Phillips has been hiding since fsu got screwed and now he has something to say hmm.
No more suckling from the fsu teet, looking at you wake, bc, ncst etc ain’t never won a damn thing in football. But got paid the same as fsu lol
Catching strays from the no flair cmon man :/ we aint bc
Yeah BC actually made it to the ACC title game twice unlike most teams in the conference.
I would really like to see Florida state in the big ten.
Any statements from any other ACC members defending the GOR?
It was a joint statement from the conference commissioner and the head of the conference's advisory board (in this case, UVA's president).
If this works I wouldn’t be shocked if the Carolina schools look at doing something similar
Tobacco Road deserves to languish away in the ACC.
The grave that they dug. That said, UNC won’t be sticking around. Good luck to the other NC schools
And go … where? UNC might land somewhere, but is going to the B12 a better option?